A Probability Model For Earnings Restatement
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Given their prevalence in recent years, earnings management and financial restatements have been at the center of much of the discussion surrounding corporate malfeasance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This study builds a probability model for predicting the likelihood of earnings restatements by analyzing the trends in and the deviations from the industry averages of the return on assets, accounts receivable turnover, net profit margin, and operating cash flow to net income measures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Data are obtained for a sample of 104 firms (restating as well as non-restating) for the 2000 to 2001 period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The results suggest that deviations from the industry average of the accounts receivable turnover and the variability in the cash flow to net income provide good barometers for detecting fraudulent accounting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Potential restating firms have higher accounts receivable turnover rates than their industry counterparts and downward trends in their cash flow to net income, so an increase (decrease) in the accounts receivable turnover (operating cash flow to net income) significantly increases the likelihood of a restatement, at least in the current study.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>